


A Nurse's Care

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [8]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-08-17
Packaged: 2018-08-09 09:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7796458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The half-crushed sky sailer had plowed this divot through the soft earth and crumpled itself against one of the three sides of unyielding granite-like cliff face that bordered the only possible emergency landing spot in the area. And to the side of it, his torso and upper body free while his legs remained trapped beneath the weight of the thing, lay Leonard McCoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nurse's Care

**Author's Note:**

> This is in response to the hc_bingo prompt: archaic medicine. It's part of my Women on the Border series.

_ The concern is that technological advances have blinded physicians to the necessity of learning more traditional techniques for healing. In terms of galactic exploration, this loss of basic medical and even surgical skills is a devastating development. If, one day, we were to crash land on a planet devoid of the most basic technology, we could no more turn to our doctors to heal our hurts than we could turn to starship engineers to build our wooden carts. _

_ Will you be the ones who heal? Will you be that first line of defense against the ignorance of history? Will it be you, or will you leave the world without a nurse's care? _

_ —Felix MacPheely, in an address to the graduating class at the San Francisco College of Nursing, 2145 _

 

Christine pushed her way back through the undergrowth, wishing she’d never suggested this trip. Padnadira was one of the low tech trade planets: they knew of and welcomed interstellar travellers, but they hadn’t achieved spaceflight themselves. The planet had an uneven magnetic field, making large areas of it opaque to sensors and impossible to reach by shuttle or transporter—even basic electronics wouldn’t work in some of these “dark zones.” There were little in the way of mineral resources. But the main reason Padnadirans were still planet-bound was simply that they were far too interested in agriculture and herbology to worry about reaching for the stars. Travellers came to visit them, sometimes offering agricultural knowledge or seeds or plants in trade, and for the Padnadirans, that was enough.

The planet’s society functioned at a level equivalent to early-twentieth century Earth, but their knowledge of herbs and healing was impressive. It was this that had been her reason for going out into the countryside instead of remaining in the capital city, where most people took their shore leave here. 

Christine had always been interested in less technological medical modalities, even more so since she’d joined the crew of the Enterprise and seen what was out here. Modern medicine was incredible and life-saving, but sometimes… things broke. Like they did today. She should have listened to Leonard and just stayed on the ship.

Leonard. Why had she ever dragged him out here with her?

“Chapel Doctor, are we close?” 

Christine sighed, looking back at the young man following her. Padnadirans were a beautiful people. Their skin tones ranged from a nearly human dark brown to a rich purple to pale pink, and their eyes were iridescent and very large, set close together so they gave an impression of constant surprise. Their hair colors seemed to be infinite, and most wore it long, with braids or twists to keep it tame.

This young man was a dark purple, his hair in three thick braids down his back and dyed pink (not that Christine would have be able to tell one way or another, but he'd been proud of the new hairstyle). His name was Hibnona, he was the Padnadiran equivalent of a healer’s apprentice, and he'd been making the same mistake over and over since they'd met him the day before.

“I’m not a doctor, Hibnona,” she repeated. Again. “And yes…” She crested the next ridge and pushed the foliage aside. “We’re close.”

The ditch below them hadn’t been there that morning. The half-crushed sky sailer had plowed this divot through the soft earth and crumpled itself against one of the three sides of unyielding granite-like cliff face that bordered the only possible emergency landing spot in the area. And to the side of it, his torso and upper body free while his legs remained trapped beneath the weight of the thing, lay Leonard McCoy.

“He’d better still be breathing,” she muttered to herself.

The descent into the ditch took far less time than the climb out had, but Christine was still aware of every passing second. She’d had to leave him here, unwilling to try to lift the craft off of him by herself for fear of having him bleed out before she had something to stop it. The old-fashioned tourniquet she’d tied around each leg should have kept him from losing too much more blood. She hadn’t had much choice, but she knew she’d risked doing more damage to the veins and arteries in his legs by depriving them bloodflow. He’d taken a hit to his head as well, and there was no telling what shape he’d be in now, after the two hours it had taken her to hike out to the nearest village, which was still in the electronic dark zone, and coordinate a rescue. 

The village of Mikluka had no doctor of its own, but Hibnona was being trained by the physician in a nearby town and had at least some useful medical instruments. He also had a younger brother who was a very fast runner and had headed out to the nearest town outside the dark zone, where he would enlist help to contact the Enterprise. 

It was all going to take much too long, though, damn it. She’d done the math as they ran back to the crash, her leg and shoulders throbbing angrily from her own injuries—she’d gotten off easy, being in the back seat of the sailer when it was hit, but easy didn’t mean unscathed. No one would be here until at least full dark tonight. Eight hours. Leonard could be dead by then if she couldn’t stop the bleeding. If he wasn’t already.

She slowed as she reached him, dropping to her knees and hissing in pain as the impact jarred her sliced and bruised thigh. She thanked the universe that she’d been dressed in civilian clothes—her heavy-weight pants had protected her a lot better than her uniform skirt would have.

“Leonard?” she called, putting a hand to his neck to check his pulse, in lieu of the silent and useless tricorder in her bag. “Dr. McCoy!?” she tried, louder.

He startled awake and groaned at the pain it caused, before looking up at her and blinking in confusion. “Christine?” he looked around, moving his head without difficulty, though she could tell his vision was unclear. “Where the hell did I land us?”

She smiled in relief. At least this time when he woke, he was oriented to place. “You picked a nice out-of-the-way spot, Doctor,” she told him. “Though you probably shouldn’t have landed the sailer on  _ you _ .”

“On…?” Leonard lifted his head up to look down at himself, then let it drop in pain. “Damn it.”

“I thought you said you’d flown one of these before,” she accused, a grin in her voice. His head wound hadn’t bled any more, she saw as she unwrapped the bit of sail she’d used to bandage it. It was messy, but once they were back on the Enterprise, it wouldn’t take long to regenerate. The ground below his legs wasn’t much more stained with blood, but that was only the part she could see. From mid-thigh down, his condition was a mystery.

“I said I’d flown gliders before,” he corrected testily. He obviously tried to move one of his legs and blanched in agony. She squeezed his shoulder and let him have a minute. “Don’t usually have twelve-foot-wide birds wanting to dance with a glider in Yosemite.” He took a deep breath, and she could see him try to slide into a physician’s mode. “Well, they move.” He grinned painfully. “Hurt like hell, but they move.”

Christine nodded, giving nothing away and looking up to see Hibnona watching them both closely, the medical bag clutched tightly in his hand. She motioned him forward.

“I checked you out as well as I could before I left to get help,” she told Leonard. Though he’d been marginally awake and aware for that—enough to tell her then what he’d just told her now—she wasn’t surprised that he didn’t remember. “Luckily Mikluka isn't far from here. Hibnona came with me to see if we could get that thing off of you.”

Leonard tried to focus on the young man, but it was clear he couldn’t. “Remember what I said about on the job training, son,” he told him wryly. Christine grinned, recalling the discussion when they'd met the young man. Leonard had told him that nothing beats on the job training. She sobered as she realized that Hibnona might get more of it than he bargained for.

Leonard was fighting the pain, fighting to focus. He looked back at Christine seriously. “What are we looking at, Nurse Chapel?”

Christine sighed. “We can assume both legs are, at the least, badly lacerated—the main mast looks like it’s just above your knees,” she explained steadily. “I can’t see any more until we get you clear, but the metal there is... very sharp.”

Leonard swallowed, suddenly realizing something that Christine had already had pounding at the back of her brain for the last two hours. He might think he felt the limbs, but there was no way to  _ actually _ tell if they were fully attached until she and Hibnona lifted the sky sailer off of him.

He didn’t seem to be able to speak for the moment, so she did it for him. “We’re going to get this off, assess the damage, and go from there, Dr. McCoy,” she told him sternly, doing exactly what he would have done if their positions were reversed. “The Enterprise will be able to get one of the Padnadiran fuel-run cars out here soon. They’ll get us home.”

He took a number of short, frightened breaths before he closed his eyes a moment and nodded. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

She looked at the vehicle that had him pinned, trying to figure out the best way to move it. If they lifted up and toward his toes, it should just tilt off onto its belly, away from him… Thank God it would only need two of them. Hopefully it wasn’t heavy enough that he was crushed under there.

The sailers were lightweight, easy to maneuver, and unpowered, which made them perfect for traversing a planet where, at any moment, you might find yourself crossing the line between an area where your powered systems worked without trouble and another where you were essentially in the stone ages.

Okay, perhaps not quite that, but the bag of medical supplies Hibnona toted with him was hardly Starfleet issue. Christine tried to forget the fact that the bag held a bone saw. She wouldn’t need it…

“Hibnona?” she asked, shaking the boy out of his contemplation of what they would find when they moved the sailer. She rose and grabbed hold of the main wood of the mast, two feet from Leonard’s right leg. “Take hold of the mast on his other side. We’ll lift hard and fast, on the count of three.”

The Padnadiran got into position and nodded his readiness.

“One… two....  _ Three! _ ”

Christine heaved with all her might, ignoring the cry of pain Leonard gave out as the sailer moved, tilting backwards and away from him. 

“Push it over!” she called, and with an almighty shove from both her and Hibnona, the craft slammed to the ground on its other side, leaving Leonard fully exposed, his eyes squeezed shut in pain, his breath coming in disjointed pants. Christine sucked in air for a long moment and surveyed the scene.

“Well, Leonard,” she said finally, a smile breaking out as relief struck her. “It looks like you’ll be dancing at your next wedding.”

“I have to have another one?” he groaned, though his mouth turned up in a painful smile. “It isn’t like the last one went so well.”

“Chapel Doctor?” Hibnona said quietly, trying to draw her attention, though she’d already seen what he was talking about. She could do this… 

She took a deep breath, kneeling and examining her friend's legs. The right one was in remarkably good shape, considering. It took almost no time at all to bandage the long cut across the lower thigh and release the tourniquet, wringing a moan and curse from the man in question. 

"It's still attached, all right," Leonard joked blackly, closing his eyes. He was shaking from shock and blood loss. And fear. Christine put that out of her mind and eyed his left leg critically. 

The thigh bone was, remarkably, still intact, though the angle of his knee said that that joint was dislocated. His lower leg had a too-bluish look to the bruises, even given the time she'd left on the tourniquet. The pool around the slice that miraculously  _ hadn't _ amputated the limb outright was large and glistening.

If she was back on the ship, he'd already be in a regen sleeve, knitting together the veins and arteries and nerves that had clearly been severed.

But they weren't on the Enterprise. And she was all he had.

“Do you have an herb that will knock him out?” she asked the Padnadiran quietly. Leonard’s eyes snapped open and stared at her. 

Hibnona shook his head. “No. Not for…” He looked around and walked quickly to a stand of florid red reeds. “I can boil these. Maggusla. He will not sleep, but it will make him very calm.”

“I’m going to need calm, aren’t I?” Leonard asked, his words slow and concerned as he clearly tried to think through the possible outcomes here. “Christine?”

“Did you ever take the qualifying exams for Exploration of Undeveloped Exosystems?” she asked him, striving for an even tone and looking up to see that Hibnona had started a fire. Leonard didn’t answer, so she continued, double checking his remaining tourniquet and causing him to wince. “The Jirarar Scenario: You’re trapped on a primitive world with minimal supplies and a patient who is bleeding badly from a limb injury. Rescue is delayed and surgery must be performed, but there are no anesthetic agents available and tissue regeneration is not an option.”

Leonard found his voice as Hibnona started a small clay pot full of water heating on the fire. “I remember that one.” He looked up at the sky, swallowing hard, his teeth chattering against each other. “I’m rethinking my answer to it.”

Somehow she’d known he took that route. Amputation, while barbaric, would ensure the survival of the patient’s body.

“I thought—” he broke off with a gasp when his right leg spasmed as it regained blood flow and sensation. “I thought that course was only for doctors.”

“And persistent nurses,” she murmured, stroking a hand through his hair and feeling the fever building in him.

“I hope— _ damn— _ hope that persistence pays off here,” he replied, trying not to clutch at his mangled leg. But he was, clutching. Like he was afraid it would be taken from him.

Christine smiled reassuringly. Sometimes you had to save the  _ person _ and trust that the body would follow along.

“I was just glad I'd spent a dozen years in a lab studying human vasculature,” she told him with a quiet smile. “I got honors for that scenario.” Hibnona nodded to her and came over, the steaming cup in his hand. 

“It will keep him calm for half a cycle,” Hibnona whispered, though Leonard was wide awake and looking at him. A day was 30 hours here. In 15, if all went well, they’d already be back on the Enterprise and this would all be a bad dream. “But it will not be enough to withstand—”

Christine glared him into silence and held the cup to Leonard’s lips as the Padnadiran lifted McCoy up so he could drink without choking. “Tastes horrible,” Leonard grumbled, but the edge of fear in his voice was obvious.

“Dr. McCoy?” she said seriously, waiting until he looked at her, his eyes already sliding farther out of focus. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

He nodded and worked his mouth, as if to say something, but faded away before he could speak. The reed obviously affected human physiology more intensely, and she monitored his vitals for a long few minutes as she thought about what had to be done.

“You… You lied to him, Chapel Doctor,” Hibnona accused quietly, staring at Leonard’s leg in horror. “When he wakes…”

Christine opened the bag he’d brought with him, reaching past the bone saw for the suture kit she hadn’t seen the likes of since that scenario fifteen years ago.

"Sometimes, on an away mission gone wrong, a nurse is all you have," one of her instructors had told her. "You better make sure that you're prepared and ready to do whatever has to be done. Make sure a nurse is all you  _ need _ ."

“When he wakes, he’ll be alive,” she said stolidly, bending over his leg. “I need water and I need an antibacterial agent—something that keeps sickness away.”

“I know what it means, Chapel Doctor,” he said, snapping out of his shock and rushing to assist her, though his eyes still showed doubt. “There is a root…” he muttered, walking into the bushes beyond them.

“He might have the makings of a doctor yet,” she murmured to Leonard, not knowing if he could hear her in his drugged state. 

She peered into the mess of his leg and set needle to vein, remembering what it was like to learn to suture living flesh, way back then.The thrill of going beyond what a nurse was  _ supposed _ to do.

_ Hell, _ she thought, _ so might I. _

*********

The reed Hibnona called Maggusla was more potent than they thought. It took fifteen hours just to get back to the Enterprise, and Dr. McCoy was still unconscious when Christine was sent off to change and sleep while Dr. Tham “repaired the damage properly.” At that point, she was just too exhausted to put him in his place.

Eight hours later, though, she was showered, rested, and headed back to sickbay to check on Leonard. Hillary had promised to call her if Dr. McCoy woke up before she returned, and her silence had Christine worrying right up until she walked in the door and saw Leonard lying there, being “guarded” by the man sleeping in the chair next to him.

Christine wasn’t surprised to see Captain Kirk there, anymore than she’d been surprised to see him riding the Padnadiran car up to the edge of the ditch the sky sailer had dug. He’d slid down the wall of it in a controlled fall, looking for all the world like he was going to beat back Death himself if he had to.

“Nurse Chapel, how is he?” he’d asked, breathless from his run. He stood over his best friend, who lay silent and still, his legs bandaged now to hide the damage. “What happened?”

“Chapel Doctor saved his life,” Hibnona said quietly, the awe in his voice causing her to grin. “I have never seen such a thing!” It wasn’t like she’d had a choice in the matter. 

“He needs to get back to the ship, sir,” she’d told him. She could give him the whole story on the long drive out. “He’s stable for now, but he needs proper medical attention.”

And he’d gotten it. 

Leonard’s left leg was wrapped in a regen sleeve from mid-thigh to ankle. His right one was lightly bandaged and Christine was a little surprised Tham had left that to heal on its own. He wasn’t one for frontier medicine, after all, and she wondered again how he’d ever found his way onto Starfleet’s exploratory flagship.

“Hey Christine,” Hillary said quietly, moving out of the office to stand next to her and watch the two men. “He’s doing fine, thanks to you.” She sighed, but it was a satisfied sigh. “We’re just waiting for that Padnadiran medicine to wear off.”

Christine nodded, looking at the very reassuring vitals displayed on the screen above the bed. “It’s probably not going to be useful for an anesthetic for most species,” she agreed, her smile fond. “But it did what we needed it to this time.”

“Tham isn’t pleased.” Hillary looked over at her and chuckled, probably at the sour look Christine knew was on her face. “I think he was expecting something out of an old horror holo, but surgery took half the time he expected, once he saw the state of Dr. McCoy’s leg.” Her gaze turned impressed. “He demanded to know how you’d been able to repair all that with just ‘a needle and thread.’”

Christine sighed. “Tham needs to remember that the universe isn’t always powered by dilithium. Sometimes you have to make do with whatever’s at hand.”

Hilary nodded and went back to watching the head of Medical as he slept on. 

“He should have lost that leg.”

Christine shook her head. “No, that’s the point. He shouldn’t have.” Leonard was twitching in his sleep and, almost as if he could sense it, the Captain was stirring as well. When Leonard’s pulse and blood pressure began to rise, Christine motioned to Hillary to alert the doctor on-call, then stepped up to the side of the bed, waiting.

Leonard’s head tossed side to side in distress, and Christine could just imagine the kind of dream he was having.

“Dr. McCoy?” she called quietly, mindful of the starship captain snoozing in the chair across the bed. “Leonard, wake up!”

Leonard’s eyes snapped open, and he looked around in a panic for a moment before his gaze landed on her. “Christine?” he asked, still disoriented. Another round of examining the room and his eyes took in Captain Kirk, who suddenly sprang to his feet as he realized his best friend was awake. 

The Captain clasped Leonard’s hand. “What have I told you about sailing strange waters, Bones?” he teased gently as the man in the bed tried to relax, safe at home.

Leonard smiled, his face tight with pain, Christine moved to the medication dispenser, but stopped when she realized they had no idea what interactions the Maggusla might have.

“It was Nurse Chapel’s idea,” he said, looking up at her as she returned to the side of the bed.

“You were lucky she was there,” the Captain said, throwing her a grateful look. He’d thanked her already. A couple of times. “She saved your life.”

Leonard opened his mouth to say something and stopped suddenly. She watched both of his legs twitch and knew exactly what he was thinking. “You’re fine,” she assured him. “You’re  _ fine. _ I promised you nothing would happen.”

His eyes closed in relief. “Here’s to the Jirarar Scenario.”

“Leonard, what in the world were you trying to do to yourself?” 

Dr. Tham’s voice preceded him, and all eyes turned to the door to watch the Matroghilian enter. His reptilian eyes narrowed in his orange scaled face as he examined Dr. McCoy critically. “You could have gotten yourself killed, galavanting around some primitive planet.” He raked Christine with a reluctantly impressed glare. “If Nurse Chapel hadn’t been there, you might have met a bad end.”

“Some would argue you’ll do that eventually anyway,” the Captain murmured, garnering a scowl from Leonard and a stifled giggle from Christine herself.

“Captain, don’t you have somewhere to be?” Tham asked pointedly. 

Captain Kirk blinked, exchanged an incredulous look with Leonard, and then looked up at Christine. “Actually, I was just going to buy Nurse Chapel a cup of coffee.” His gaze turned questioning. “If you’d like?”

Christine knew she was blushing, but she nodded her assent anyway. “I’d like that, sir, thank you.”

“Come along then, Chapel Doctor,” he said, walking over to take her arm. 

“Doctor?” Tham said, shocked. 

Christine bristled, but relaxed in surprise when Leonard snorted. 

“I don’t know, Tham,” he said, a touch of censure in his voice. “If the shoe fits…?”

Captain Kirk smiled at her as they walked out. 

“I don’t know anything about shoes, and I don’t want to,” Tham declared as the door shut behind them.

“One of the hazards of having feet like an alligator,” the Captain joked. He stopped them both in the middle of the hall. “Thanks for making sure Bones still needs a pair.” He shuddered. “If Tham had been the one with him…”

Christine smiled. “If Tham had been with him, they would have been safe here on the Enterprise, not on some ‘primitive planet, good only for growing trees and twigs.’” 

Still, as the Captain chuckled at her joke, she stood a little taller. She hadn’t done badly at all, had she? Maybe that old dream she’d had should be dusted off when they finished this tour. Doctor Chapel had a nice ring to it.

But Nurse Chapel had been the one they needed this time. Thank goodness she’d been more than enough.

*******   
the end


End file.
